Monday, 01 April 2013

So one of the first things I need to do when I get my apartment today is get
the electricity on. I've actually already ordered ADSL, which shows you what
I think is more important, but without electricity, there is no Internet...

It would appear that in 2007, Queensland opened up its electricity and gas
markets to "full retail competition".
According to Energex, they do the generation, distribution, and the
retailer handles connections, disconnections, billing and green energy.

I still need to deal directly with Energex for power outages, reporting
faulty street lights, requesting a tree that's near power lines be trimmed,
and so on.

So if the retailers have no say in what price they're paying for the
electricity that's being generated by Energex, I'm struggling to see what
their point is. I guess they get to differentiate on customer service, but
really, that's it?

It was also really hard to find a canonical list of retailers to choose
from. I would have thought that'd be linked off Energex's "Choosing your
electricity retailer" page, but no, it's buried
in the FAQ.

Now it comes down to a case of doing a comparison between 11 retailers and
trying to choose one. Or just going with the first one on the list. It's
just electricity, people. It's a utility. I do not want to expend as much
time on choosing an electricity retailer as I would my ISP (interestingly,
it looks like Dodo has
gotten in on the electricity retailing act).

But one could say that an upside of having jet lag and being awake since 3am,
is that one has time to comparison shop the 11 electricity retailers, except
I won't. I'll just write this blog post instead.

I have heard of one horror story, where a homeowner returned to living in
his house, and had a nightmare time with one retailer because the previous
occupants had an outstanding debt with that retailer, and he was trying to
get a connection going with a different retailer, and lots of hilarity
ensued. Except it wasn't hilarious. So I'll have to keep an eye on that.

What's pretty crazy is that at no point from quickly skimming AGL's landing
page for Queensland pricing is there any indication of kWh or an actual
price for anything. There's lots of noise about discounts, and flexibility,
and other nonsense, but it seems like the actual cost of energy is so
buried, it's incredible. It seems to be all about locking in on a contract,
which is somewhat amazing. This is just electricity, but they seem to have
turned this into a mobile phone plan type of situation. Amazing.

After more
digging, it looks like I can pay 5.5 cents per kWh for 100% green
energy. Maybe.

Well, we're back in Brisbane, for good. Now starts the long and involved
process of bootstrapping a new life for myself. Fortunately it's slightly
more familiar territory than starting up in the US was.

The tenants in my Hawthorne apartment have agreed to terminate their lease
early, and I should get the keys tomorrow. The lease on my Woolloongabba
apartment ends on Friday I think, and all of our stuff is scheduled to be
delivered there next Monday.

My primary goal is to get my apartment habitable for Zoe and I as soon as
possible. That means beds and a fridge, and Zoe's going to need some way of
being kept entertained while I'm running around like a chook with its head
cut off, which is most likely going to mean a TV and a DVD player.

This week is going to be spent doing a lot of running around. I need to get
a car, get a Queensland driver's licence, get the electricity on, get the
ADSL on, buy appliances, furnish Zoe's room, furnish my room, heck, furnish
the whole apartment, really. It's going to be very full on busy. I don't
want to race out and buy anything today, even though the shops seem to be
open, because I want to measure up my apartment first.

The day's sole purchase was an electric screwdriver from Bunnings. There
will be much Ikea assembly in my future.